


Days Before You Came

by panicparade



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco, Young Veins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Community: trope_bingo, Emotional Roller Coaster, Fluff, M/M, Reincarnation, marriage!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 21:59:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panicparade/pseuds/panicparade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It might have taken a few decades for them to get there, but ultimately everyone gets the happy ending they deserve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days Before You Came

**Author's Note:**

> So. I'm laughing really hard at what I've written for the summary. But, be warned that's kind of what this whole thing is like - Angst + Fluff = Happy Ending. 
> 
> Written for the Reincarnation square on my [Trope_Bingo Card](http://panicparade.dreamwidth.org/713.html)  
> Title is a song by _Placebo_.  
>  Once again,[clockworkmayhem](www.clockworkmayhem.livejournal.com) is awesome for helping me fix things up. :)  
> Seriously, go check out her fics!!  
> 

** Days Before You Came **

****

_ 1920 _

Brendon stepped out of the car and fixed his coat before turning around to assist his mother. London was cold this time of the year, though not as cool as it was in the countryside; Brendon quite enjoyed the change in temperature. His father had written to him last week informing him about his return to the country and Brendon had decided to take his mother and sister, the only one left to be wed, that was, along with him to receive his father. The London season was in full swing and it would make a pleasant change for all of them. His mother could spend her time indulging herself in gossip about the fresh scandals that had sprung up since she'd last been here and hadn't been informed of yet by Brendon's aunt, while his sister could enjoy the numerous invitations to dances she'd already received since they got here. Brendon had no such agenda other than getting a chance to walk around the city again; he loved their family home with its miles of land and the quaint little pond and all the other pleasures the country side had to offer but sometimes he needed a change and London offered that. Also, his childhood best friend, Spencer Smith worked and lived here and this presented an opportunity for them to catch up with each other as they hardly got to meet, what with Spencer being too occupied working to learn how to run his father’s business alongside him.  
  
A loud whistle brought his attention back to the _RMS Saxonia_ that had by now been anchored at the dock, and boards and stairwells were already being secured in place for the ship's passengers to get off the vessel. He could hear his sister talking excitedly to their mother beside him, something about a captain asking her for a dance three times last night at the Beckett's; Brendon made a note to find out more about said captain. He was busy trying to find his father amongst all the First Class passengers that were currently disembarking. He finally caught sight of his father, walking down the ramp while deep in conversation with a tall man that Brendon had never seen before. Behind them walked his father's valet carrying the bags. Brendon asked his mother and sister to stay near the car and moved towards his father, who hated to be kept waiting, and met him at the end of the walkway, taking care to stand to the side; he didn't like crowds, the jostling and confined feeling that accompanied them. His father gave a small smile on seeing him, surprising Brendon, who gave him a wide smile in return but it was lost as his father had already turned back to talk to the tall man who had been accompanying him.   
  
Brendon waited patiently to the side while his father finished his conversation, after which he turned to his son and exclaimed, "Brendon, son! I was worried whether you would be able to get here in time. I apologise, I got caught up in making arrangements and didn’t think my letter would reach you in time." Clearly the trip must have been quite comfortable - never before had he seen his father in such high spirits after an overseas journey.  
  
"The letter arrived in time, Father; we arrived in London just 3 days back. Mother and Catherine are waiting at the car. They were excited at the prospect of coming to receive you." Brendon wanted to start moving back towards the car; with more and more people making their way down the ramps Brendon was starting to get uncomfortable. But his father didn’t notice and instead turned his attention back to the man standing beside him, beckoning for his son to come forward.

“Brendon, I’d like you to meet Mr. George Ross, an old acquaintance. I was fortunate enough to run into him on this trip and we were able to catch up on lost time.” Brendon gave a small smile and moved forward to shake hands with Mr. Ross, who was regarding him with a cool expression and gave a small nod in return. As Brendon’s father turned to his valet to instruct him about the luggage, Brendon saw Mr. Ross turn to talk to someone behind him, a boy who’d just walked down the ramp and come to stand behind the man.

“Ah. I see you finally caught up with us,” Brendon’s father addressed the boy, smile still on his face, while the boy only nodded back in return, seemingly looking everywhere but at Mr. Ross. “Brendon, I’d like you meet Ryan Ross. He’ll be attending Oxford this fall and I thought it would help him to spend some time with people his age before he starts, so I’ve invited him to stay with us here in London as his father finishes up his work.”

This was when Brendon decided to finally turn and give the boy his complete attention, who was scowling at the ground. Brendon thought he looked quite adorable when he scowled. As his father finished introducing them, the boy, Ryan, looked up and held out his hand to meet Brendon’s so that they could properly greet each other.

“Thank you for your offer. It would be nice to get a hang of the country and its people before I start my classes,” Ryan said with a small smile, his American accent strong and thick.

Brendon wanted to say that he hadn’t even known about it until this moment, but he liked Ryan’s smile so he just shook his hand and started moving towards the car as his father decided they should leave now, and not keep Brendon’s mother and sister waiting for long.

Brendon didn’t really show it, but he was quite happy that his father had invited Ryan to stay with them. It had been ages since Brendon had gotten to spend some time with someone his age (since Spencer moved to London), and Brendon enjoyed it. It took some time for Ryan to adjust to living with him and Brendon sympathised. Living with a new family, especially one you hardly knew, wasn’t easy at first and Ryan’s father had left after only staying just the night. But Brendon made sure to make Ryan feel welcome and if in return he got to see his smile, well then. Brendon wasn’t really complaining. They started spending entire days together, walking around the city and visiting Spencer, who had taken to Ryan like they were old friends rather than having just met a few days back. They spent a lot of time walking around Hyde Park, where Ryan loved to sit watch the ducks and Brendon would sometimes sit and watch Ryan.

He told himself it was nothing, that they were friends and he was doing nothing wrong. But the nagging thought would always be there at the back of his head, reminding him of Sir Wentz’s oldest son, who’d run away and had been cause for scandal so great that even now, years later, the Wentz’s hardly ever attended any social gathering. His father’s gaze on the two of them when they sat together in the library or walked in the door laughing, did not help matters and only made Brendon grow uncomfortable. 

Brendon tried to deny it, told himself there was nothing there, but he couldn’t lie to himself anymore when he would lie awake at night, going over the day. Remembering Ryan’s smile, the way he’d held his hand when he laughed too hard, how badly he wanted to kiss him and see if he tasted as sweet as Brendon thought he did. And Brendon would sit up panting, covered in sweat as he tried to erase those images from his head where they had no place. This was wrong. He was not Pete Wentz and he would not leave his family in shame over some fleeting feelings, feelings that didn’t even exist in the first place.

It all came to head the day before Ryan was to leave for Oxford. They were at the park, as they mostly were this time of the day, and were sitting around the lake watching the ducks. It had rained that morning and as such there were very few people around the park, most of them preferring to stay home in case it rained again, but Brendon and Ryan had no such worries. Besides, Ryan had specially asked him that morning if they could to the park, and why would Brendon say no? They were sitting and talking about Spencer’s job when suddenly Ryan leaned forward and pressed his lips against Brendon’s, who was sitting right next to him. Brendon stopped midsentence. He froze, and for a moment there was nothing but the feel of soft lips touching his before he realised _it was Ryan who was kissing him_ and he scrambled back on the wet grass, trying to put as much distance between the two of them as he could. The expression of hurt and rejection on Ryan’s face was almost but not quite enough to make Brendon close the distance between them as he stood up and walked back to his house alone. That night Brendon went to his father’s study and expressed his interest in getting married as he thought he was of a suitable age now, delighting his father, who’d been trying for some time to get Brendon to agree to a profitable engagement.

Ryan left the following day and they exchanged no words, with Brendon watching him leave from the top of the stairs, refusing to let the tears flow, no matter how hard they tried. He was married three months after Ryan’s departure and though he was invited, Mr. Ross was the only one of the Ross family in attendance. He tried to keep up with Ryan’s life through common friends, mostly Spencer, who didn’t know of what transpired between his two friends and never tried to find out. The only time Brendon let himself shed a tear over what he could have had was when he heard of Ryan’s elopement with a certain Jon Walker, to Berlin where Pete Wentz lived with his partner. Mr. Ross moved back to America not much later, and Brendon’s wife decided to sleep in another bedroom after witnessing his break down, finally realising why her husband could never give his heart to her, no matter how much Brendon wanted to; how could he, when it belonged to someone else?

  
  
                                                                         ***********

_ 2000’s _

The first time Ryan Ross ran into Brendon Urie was at a party his best friend Spencer hosted so that Ryan could meet all his friends. They literally ran into each other, when Brendon (who’d been laughing at something Spencer’s boyfriend Jon had said) didn’t pay attention while walking towards the kitchen and collided with Ryan, who’d been coming out. Ryan would have laughed it off had Brendon not spilled beer all over his favourite scarf which led to “The Bitch Fit of ‘08” (as Spencer, the jerk, titled it) and he demanded Brendon be responsible for getting his scarf cleaned and presented back to him before he went back to L.A., where he was studying. All throughout Ryan’s rant Brendon just stood there, leaning against the doorframe and smiling slightly, while Ryan waved his soaked scarf in front of face. When Ryan finally stopped to catch his breath Brendon stood up straight, walked up to Ryan and asked, “Do you want to go get something to eat?”

Spencer was ready to move forward in case Ryan decided to choke Brendon, but he was glad Jon stopped him from interfering, because Ryan’s look of rage turned to confusion as he stood there staring at Brendon with his mouth open. It took him some tries, but Ryan managed to sputter, “You – wait – what the – _what_?”

Brendon just laughed and asked again, polite as ever, like just a minute ago Ryan hadn’t been threatening him with bodily harm that involved a chainsaw. “Do you want to go out for dinner? I’m hungry and Spencer never bothers with proper food when there’s a party. I figured you’d be hungry too, after travelling and then blowing off steam; it does take a lot of energy to get so worked up.”

By the time Brendon finished with his explanation, Ryan had closed his mouth and dropped his scarf, standing there with a slightly embarrassed expression on his face while biting his lip and looking anywhere but at Brendon, who was still waiting for Ryan’s answer. Ryan hadn’t made Brendon wait for too long, he’d grabbed his phone and then finally met Brendon’s gaze, which was still steadily fixed on him, to say, “Yeah. Sure. I’m kinda hungry too.”

And they had walked out of the door, leaving a shocked Spencer and laughing Jon behind, Brendon taking care to shout through the door as he led Ryan out that Spencer shouldn’t wait up.

A week later, Ryan was filling out the forms to transfer to UNLV. Initially, Spencer had been a little conflicted, his best friend mode kicking in, trying to talk to Ryan about how this was maybe all a little too fast, that he’d only known Brendon for a week. But he kept forgetting how stubborn Ryan could be and they’d had their first argument in years, which led to Ryan storming out of the apartment. When Brendon made to go out after him Jon stopped him and said he’d go instead, giving Spencer and Brendon pointed looks to ensure that they got the message; they needed to sort this out before someone got hurt.

Spencer hadn’t expected Brendon to speak first - he was never one to avoid conflict but he didn’t ever go looking for it either, and the fact that he wanted to go first and get his point across was enough to make Spencer realise how serious this entire situation was for Brendon. So Spencer sat down at the table and waited for Brendon to speak, watched just how agitated his roommate looked as he ran his hands through his hair and paced around the kitchen, glancing at the door every minute with a worried expression on his face. Finally, Brendon sat down across from Spencer and looked at him for the first time since Ryan slammed the door behind him. In his entire year of living with Brendon, Spencer had never seen Brendon look so serious, so focused; it unnerved him a little, being faced with a side of Brendon he wasn’t familiar with. Brendon placed his palms flat out on the table in between the two of them, and spoke.

“Spence, I’ve lived with you for a year and you’re one of my best friends in the whole world now, and in that whole year how many one night-stands or dates or relationships do you think I’ve had?” Brendon asked, looking straight him and waiting. And as Spencer thought about, he realised that while there was no doubt that Brendon was one of the friendliest and nicest people he’d ever met and had no shortage of friends and people around him, in the year they’d lived together not once had Brendon brought someone home for a one-night stand or hooked up with anyone like that. He’d been on a few dates, yeah; Spencer had met one or two of them but somehow it hadn’t ever gone any further. He remembered Jon telling him about Brendon once, about the only serious relationship he’d been in and how badly it had ended, leaving Brendon broken and scarred for years. Brendon just waited for him to work it out in his head and when he saw that he had, he continued without waiting for Spencer to reply.

“I know Jon told you about Shane - no, it’s okay, you deserve to know. So you should also know why we ended it. I loved Shane, but even when we were at our happiest there was a part of me that thought it never felt right, that even though we worked it wasn’t enough. There was more for me out there, someone I didn’t even know I was looking for, but I was. Someone who’d finally bring me that sense of peace that I’ve been missing for so many years. And I wouldn’t talk about this with just anyone, but I know you’ll understand ‘cause you feel the same way about Jon, even if the two of you were idiots who took ages to figure it out and _don’t you dare_ deny it.” Spencer rolled his eyes and Brendon laughed, some of the tension seeping away but Spencer saw how Brendon still held himself tight, continuously glancing at the door. Brendon ran his hand through his hair again and continued. “Anyway, the point is that I won’t say Ryan completes me or anything like that but he made me realise that I _was missing something._ And he’s what I’ve needed all along, Spence, I’ve never felt so stable or so in peace before. I guess that’s why I couldn’t get into another relationship after Shane; he was the closest that came to making me feel anything even vaguely resembling a sense of calm but _Ryan is it._ And I get why you’re worried. It won’t make much sense to most because no one expects to get so deeply involved in a week, but please Spence, trust us on this. Trust Ryan on this. Did you know I was already planning on transferring to L.A. two days after we’d gone out for dinner?”

Spencer started at that. He’d had no idea and he wondered if he should maybe feel guilty for being more interested in taking advantage of an empty apartment than to realise that maybe, his best friend was falling in love. He shook his head and Brendon smiled a little at his expression. “I was. I’d even talked to my department but Ryan found out and he freaked, locked himself in the bathroom for two hours.”

Spencer laughed and said, “Yeah. That’s Ryan’s M.O.: run when something freaks you out.” He saw Brendon’s eyes flick back at the door yet again. “How did you get him out?”

Brendon chuckled and tapped the table top with his knuckles absentmindedly, looking out the window. “The funny thing is that I didn’t. I sat on the bed and waited for him to come out. I had already kind of figured out that pushing him doesn’t work; he came out on his own two hours later and apologised. Said he would have come out sooner but he fell asleep in the tub.” Brendon rolled his eyes and Spencer tipped his chair back on two legs, laughing. “Anyway, so he came out and said that it’s better if he moves here ‘cause that way he would be near you too. And that was it, no more discussions.”

For the first time Spencer let himself think of Ryan being back in Vegas, being able to see his best friend everyday instead of having to wait months and he would be lying if he said that he wasn’t excited by that. He missed Ryan when he was L.A., and there were days when all he needed was his best friend and it sucked that he was hours away. Spencer slid down his chair a little, saying, “I won’t lie and say I get it. Because I don’t, I just can’t see how you guys can be sure of each other in only a week, but I’ve always taken things slow while Ryan was the one who went headfirst into everything he tried. But, Bren you need to know where I’m coming from. Ryan’s had pretty shitty luck when it comes to relationships and I’ve had to see my best friend break down too many times to ever want to see him go through that ever again.” He looked up to see Brendon staring at him, looking determined while also seemingly falling apart at the same time. Spencer took in a deep breath and continued, watching Brendon steel himself. “I guess if he’s here at least I can keep an eye on him and just so you know, I’ll kick your ass from here to Mars if you ever make him cry.” Brendon was out of his chair and hugging Spencer before he’d finished. When Brendon thanked him, Spencer scoffed but hugged him back. “As if my disapproval would have stopped Ryan. He’s a stubborn bastard who does what he wants.”

Brendon hit him on the head as he passed by Spencer to get a glass of water. “Don’t talk about my boyfriend like that.” He glanced at the door again once more, his smile fading a little and Spencer noticed that he still looked tense; each time he’d look that way he’d get even tenser and Spencer wondered what Brendon was worried about when he realised that Brendon was waiting for Ryan _._

“I bet those fuckers are eating dim sums down at that place while we sit here without food,” Spencer said and he was happy to see Brendon relax and smile a little, which turned into a full blown smile when Jon walked through the door soon after, carrying bags of takeout with Ryan behind him.

Brendon made no move from where he was standing near the counter and Jon joined him there, both of them waiting for Ryan and Spencer to talk. Ryan walked up to stand in front of Spencer, arms folded in front of him as he glared at Spencer.

“I hope you know that you’re an asshole,” Ryan said eventually, and Spencer really didn’t want to laugh, but, “Seriously? Is that the best you came up with?”

Jon and Brendon burst out laughing and Ryan turned to shoot them a look, but Jon just laughed harder and started unpacking the food while Brendon blew him a kiss, still watching the two of them.

Ryan would have stood and glared at Spencer all day (he’d done that before, too), so Spencer cut to chase and stood up and hugged Ryan, saying something in his ear that made him smile and relax against Spencer, which in turn made Brendon finally let go of all the tension he was holding.

Ryan moved to Vegas and about a month after they graduated Brendon asked Ryan to marry him. They were married three months later. Jon proposed to Spencer at their wedding reception.

Brendon has these dreams, filled with parks and ducks and stolen kisses and most of the times he’ll wake up with tears in his eyes after such dreams. He’s been having them for as long as he knows, even back when he was with Shane. The difference is that while then he could never fall asleep again with the feeling of loss clinging to him, nowall he needs to do is turn around and see Ryan sleeping next to him, drooling on the pillow, and he has no troubles falling back asleep while holding onto Ryan.


End file.
